In a stark, unfinished office space in a gritty corner of Philadelphia
along the Delaware River, Hillary Clinton supporters gathered last Sunday to
plan a campaign that wasn't supposed to happen. "We cannot take anything,
any area, any voter for granted," the city's newly elected mayor, Michael
Nutter, told the crowd of perhaps 150. The race, he said, will be like this
year's Super Bowl, in which the previously undefeated New England Patriots
unexpectedly fell to the underdog New York Giants. And he means for the
Pennsylvania's Clinton campaign to be the Giants. "We have our work cut out
for us," he said. "But we have a real candidate who is a real person, and
she really does care."

Campaign organizer Abe Dyk assured the crowd that the six-week run-up to
the primary will be a full-bore, no-excuses campaign. "We will be Iowa on
steroids ... everything we do in a traditional campaign after Labor Day
we're going to start doing after March 4," the date of primaries in Ohio and
Texas, he told the cheering crowd of activists.

In fact, the state's April 22 primary is shaping up to be another
so-called decisive battle in the Democratic campaign. It is the single
biggest prize in the next six weeks, with 103 delegates up for a vote. With
her comeback victories in Texas and Ohio, Clinton needs a solid victory here
to justify a potential triumph at the convention with a
superdelegate strategy. Obama needs to counter
that strategy by piling up the pledged delegates, to blunt any Clinton
hold on the superdelegates that is based on momentum and growing popular
support. "Neither Clinton nor Obama can afford to bypass [Pennsylvania]," said pollster and political analyst G. Terry Madonna of
Franklin & Marshall College. "They can't afford to let it alone even though
it won't give anyone enough pledged delegates for a victory at the
convention." Madonna's latest poll, taken in mid-February, shows Clinton
holding a good lead in Pennsylvania, 44 to 32 percent, but Obama has closed
the gap since January, when he was 20 points down. Democratic consultant
Larry Ceisler believes that by winning Texas and Ohio, Clinton proves she
can win Pennsylvania.

Indeed, Pennsylvania and Ohio share very similar demographics. It
appears that the campaign in this state will look much like the one just
concluded in its neighbor, with a strong emphasis on economics and some
sparring over national security. Clinton organizers in Pennsylvania were
instructing volunteers early in the week to call Ohio and tell undecided
voters that she will "deliver real solutions to the lagging economy and
soaring home foreclosures," both issues that have affected Pennsylvania,
particularly in the formerly industrial sections in the West and Northeast.
Obama's statewide chairman, Congressman Patrick Murphy, predicted that the
candidates will also continue the Ohio debate over the legacy of NAFTA,
which blue-collar workers in Pennsylvania blame for the loss of textile
jobs.

Money has been a problem for Clinton, with Obama far outraising her, but
the results on Tuesday may change her fortunes as donors become more certain
she can win. And Pennsylvania is generally thought to be a rich state for
Democratic candidates looking for funds. Obama is "a money-making machine,"
Madonna said. "She would probably have a more significant problem, but she
does have [Governor] Ed Rendell and his money-making boys" to help
fund the fight.

Madonna said Obama is likely to do very well in Philadelphia, with a
large African-American electorate, and may win in the city's suburbs, which
have the same kinds of upscale, well-educated professionals that have gone
for Obama in recent contests. Western and Central Pennsylvania are much more
conservative, blue-collar and Catholic, and the voters tend to be a bit
older, all of which seem to favor Clinton. The key battleground is likely to
be in the Lehigh Valley and the Northeast, toward Scranton and Wilkes-Barre,
where traditional blue-collar industry is giving way to high-tech.

Despite Clinton's continued lead in the state polls, Obama is riding on a
wave of grassroots enthusiasm, the likes of which political veterans say
they have never seen before. Until late February, neither candidate had much
of an organization in the state  a handful of junior staffers but no
more. But without prompting from the national campaign, dozens of
self-generated Obama organizations have sprung up around the state in recent
months, drawing in thousands of supporters. "The brilliance of the Obama
campaign is that it is very organic," said Dan Wofford, an Obama supporter
and son of former Sen. Harris Wofford. "It's not without structure, but it
is bottom-up." As campaign staff begins to arrive in the state, he said,
"they are very mindful; they don't want to snuff out the grass roots with a
layer of hierarchy on top of it, but they do bring in structure that helps
nourish the grassroots movement."

Kathleen Hood of Highland Township, for example, began holding house
parties for Obama last year and took it upon herself to set up "United for
Obama in Chester County" in early February this year. Since her first
meeting, the group has grown from seven to 50, all without any contact from
the official campaign until the final few days of the month, when some staff
began coming into the state. She was able to do it largely by using the
campaign website, which has a calendar for local activists to post events
and reams of material for organizers to use without having to have any
direct support from the central campaign. "They've provided tools that can
be used to begin to generate that enthusiasm ... there are very specific
tools you can use, very specific things you can do," said Hood, a teacher
and school administrator. "It helps you act on your strong beliefs. That's
what so exciting about it."